1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus and, more particularly, to magnetic recording and reproducing apparatus that is intended to carry out a so-called tape dubbing operation.
2. Description of the Background
In addition to a one-way cassette tape recorder in which the tape is transported in the playback or record mode in only one direction, there is now known a so-called auto-reverse cassette tape recorder in which after the transport of the tape in a first direction is completed the tape is then transported in the opposite direction without turning the tape cassette over. Such opposite transporting occurs in the playback or record modes and is not to be confused with the automatic rewind provision which is also well known.
There is also now known a so-called double-deck cassette tape recorder in which two separate tape recorders are combined so that a recorded signal can be reproduced on one cassette tape recorder and recorded on the other, whereby the recorded signal is transferred from one magnetic tape to another. When the recording is to be transferred from one tape to another it is preferable that, just after the dubbing of the first direction of the magnetic tape is ended, the opposite direction is continuously dubbed automatically. Thus, a problem is presented in which when there is a slight discrepancy in the actual lengths of the tapes, the playback, for example, may start its reverse direction shortly before the recording tape has ended, thereby providing a dubbed tape that does not properly match the original. In addition to the slight discrepancies that may exist in the tape lengths, there is also typically a slight discrepancy in the tape drive speeds between various tape transport mechanisms. Therefore, these discrepancies are not of such a large magnitude as to cause information to be lost in the dubbing process but are sufficiently large that one or the other of the playback or record apparatus may commence its reversing operation before the other unit is ready for such reverse operation.
Thus, the duplicate tapes obtained by the dubbing operation are not identical as far as the actual program content on each side of the cassette is concerned.